Young Ones
by Quillian
Summary: One shot!  Some more of Elfangor's private thoughts...


**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own _Animorphs_. K.A. Applegate does, along with all the other books she's written or is currently writing.

**NOTE:** If you haven't read _The Andalite Chronicles_ first, then this may not make any sense. This is from Elfangor's POV, and chronologically takes place between _The Andalite Chronicles_ and the first book in the series, _The Invasion_.

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"**_Young Ones,"_**

_By Quillian_

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_Dedicated to **metroid13**, whose _Animorphs _fic "A Prince's Life" inspired this, as well as my first-ever _Animorphs _fic, "So Close and Far Away."_

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My name is Elfangor.

I am an Andalite. I am also a prince in the military, and one of the best pilots in the war against the Yeerks.

I was just another Andalite warrior fighting for my world and my people.

No, edit that…

I was a special kind of Andalite fighting for _both_ my worlds and _both_ my peoples.

For years, I had been in a sort of self-imposed exile on Earth, living as a human. I had a happy life, I worked in the developing computer business, I had a wife, and I had a child on the way.

And then the Ellimist came along and approached me with an offer I couldn't refuse.

At least he allowed my son to still technically be my son, and let me retain the memories of the life I had as a human. Well, thank the Ellimist for small favors, I suppose.

When he "fixed" the timeline, I also gained memories of things which I "had" been there before, including the birth of my younger brother: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

By now, he has already learned how to talk (on average, Andalite foals tend to learn at least twice as fast as human children, if my calculations are correct), and already, he is accompanying me, talking with me, and telling me how much he wants to be like me when he grows up…

As much as I like him and how he admires me, I just keep thinking to myself: _If only you knew, Aximili, if only you knew…_

If only you knew how grandly I erred and ruined things when I was a young _aristh_. If only you knew how I ran away to another planet and tried to leave it all behind when I couldn't handle it anymore. If only you knew that you had a young nephew on some relatively distant planet, belonging to another species.

My younger brother has his older brother back, my parents have their son back, my pilots have their prince back, and the People have their hero back… but my son is missing his father.

It wouldn't have hurt to know what my son looked like, or even what his name was…

I knew how the perceptions of childhood can be shattered by the reality of adulthood, but the premise of a war makes things exponentially worse.

I always wanted to be like my father, not just because he was a respected warrior in the military, but because of how he served during a time of peace. Oh, how my assumptions had been shattered, not just by my own experience in the military from the very first day, but with how the Yeerk War was going on…

You know something? All one can do about it now is hypothesize, but I think that even if I wasn't in the middle of a war, things still would have been hard enough for me to make me wonder why I had ever joined in the first place.

As a young one, I had so many thoughts, beliefs and perceptions about the world around me that were shattered once by adulthood, then shattered again by war. I know that my brother will find this out for himself one day, as will my son, which I know from the glimpse of the future which the Ellimist allowed me to see.

But even worse might be when my son becomes part of the fight against the Yeerks. I understood that, while the concept of life in the outer space beyond Earth is typical of human science fiction, that concept being a reality would be very hard for humans to digest upon discovery. I knew how my son would have a not-so-happy childhood somehow, and this would only complicate things… but as I myself had learned firsthand, a single person's happiness can compare to the well-being of countless species like comparing all the matter in the universe to all the non-matter.

My brother and my son… both members of different species and different worlds, yet linked together through me, and both of whom I was determined to help if it was within my power.

For now, I go through the motions of an Andalite prince in the military… and only in private do I privately appreciate what I have, and just as equally weep for what I have lost. The small pain still lingers within me like some small scar that can't be removed, but it was not nearly as bad as those first few private moments I managed to procure after returning to my life as an Andalite warrior. Quite possibly the only thing stopping me from crying was the fact that we Andalites don't have lacrimal glands like humans do.

Then again… maybe there were more small miracles in this then I had originally discovered. Another small yet significant one was the fact that I was in the military at all; a lot of the time, Andalite females would rather wait for their loved ones to come home after a battle or war to marry them then, and look forward to a brighter future. This actually gave me an excuse not to marry, telling my parents that I would rather wait until I had done my part in the war before taking an interest in some female. In truth, I was just putting it off as much as possible, as I felt I could never love or be loved by anyone else the way I loved or was loved by Loren, as well as how I felt that seeking another wife could be seen as being unfaithful somehow.

My only hope as that they can survive this war, alive and as unscathed as possible… and that I can contribute to that in any way possible to make sure that happens.

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_**FIN**_

A/N: So, how was this? –_Quillian_


End file.
